Who is really optimistic about this game?

[LillithaFenimore]

Okay.
Fist off, you're wrong, being 'behind' is purely a matter of perspective and has no bearing on population or features aside from personal taste and overall finical gain which at this point any amount of profit would be a gain. Square has enough reserve finances from Dragon Quest and the like to keep this game alive for a long time should they choose; how it relates with other MMO's in terms of profit isn't terribly relevant for us.

Second, the reason that certain "simple features" haven't been implemented or have taken so long to be implemented, have to do with a combination of bad server structure, the change of development team, and the total redesign. You should know this by now. I'm tired of explaining it.

Third, there are things that FFXIV does that other MMO's are behind in. One character being allowed any job or class at any given time. Direct player input on game development. Multi-platform and multinational servers. First and Surnames (yeah big deal I know, don't focus on this though because I swear to Halone if you pinpoint on the weakest link and ignore everything else- OOOH).

Is it perfect? God no.
Could it use other features from other MMO's? [omitted] yes.


But being "behind"? That's dumb. That implies there's a linear course, an eventual goal in design. An end we'll somehow eventually reach.

I am sure they do have enough finances to keep this game alive along as they chose, I never said otherwise. And I never discussed anything about SE profting from this game. It's all on them if they chose to keep a game open and make/lose money from it.

Actually, the lack of the two items I discussed in my post is from them doing a rush job on this game. Yeah, the reason why the game wasn't implemented with two basic feature I discussed may have very well be due to bad server structure. Hence why you don't release half-finished work >_<; you just don't! You don't turn in work that is half finished, you don't sell a customer a brand new shiney car, who is expecting it to have a engine in it, and charge full price! It's bad bad business practices and you lose customers that way, even long time customers. In business, you don't chance in ruining your customer loyalty. You mess up once and maybe the customer will give you the opportunity to fix the issue, but if you can't properly fix the issue in a proper amount of time you just lost your customer, & word of mouth travels fast.

You are right, that is one great thing FFXI and FFXIV had going for it. You could have one character and give it as many jobs as you wanted. That is great and it is a shame that more MMO's do not do this. However, I pinpointed two our of many weakest links this game had stacked against it. It was released with lag issues, it was released with very minimal content (There was the main story line, behest, and leves.), wards were impossible to navigate through causing extreme price gouging of items (and you can't say they didn't exist in the beginning because I expierienced it first hand in crafting when I was trying to hunt down ingredients to grind my craft), crafting was extremely irritating due to need god knows how many items to craft something, space on character and retainer was limited, lack of various modes of transport once Anima was consumed, no way for DOL to avoid HL monsters in areas they needed in order to progress in level (I didn't expirience this first hand, but from playing over this entire time this seemed to be a concern amongst DOL)...need I go on?


Do I or many expect a game to be perfect on release...IDK maybe, I'm not one of them, but the list of issues they had at release...really? Really? That is insane. Those are things that shouldn't have been. So yes, at release, they to me seemed very very behind compared to other MMO's, especially compared to SW at release since it's a new MMO, and FFXIV was released just a little over a year ago.

I'm not saying the team isn't doing a great job now, cause they are. They are truly working their tooshies off and I commend every single one of them for sticking with this project to hopefully bring it to the glory it deserves. However I think many are in very much so denial about this game behind behind others in terms of being released for play for the first time.

[Gramul]

Passive aggression

Look, if you don't want to seriously discuss it just tell me. I'm not gonna waste my time with that schadenfreude nonsense.

bold

The finance thing wasn't really directed at you so don't worry yourself over it. As for the "half finished" features, consider them a sort of quick fix while they work on the 2.0 version; as far as you should be concerned, this is the 2.0 beta and they're not charging full price. The folly of FFXIV is on its own merit and should be judged as such. FFXIV is no more behind other MMO's as VVVVVV is behind Super Mario 3D land.

Basically what I'm trying to convey is that evolution is not a line. Development and style come from adapting to any given situation to whatever is the best outcome decided by the people in charge. If you fail to adapt, you die. FFXIV is adapting by Yoshi and company's perspective, developers not in the same position or mindset of WoW or swtor's developers.

Squares Goals at this point are basicly:
Have the game make money.
Regain trust in Fanbase.

Blizzard and EA's are:
Make even more money.

Or at least that's how it seems.

There are many routes with many goals. The results of one game do not have to be reflected in another.